Fitting In
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November 19, 2009
Filed under Opinion
From wardrobe, music genres, hair styles and make up to the type of sport you play, we strive to be accepted in high school and society in general. Perfection is the goal and it can never be reached so why do we try? Fitting in with your peers is a goal that I think every high school student secretly wants. It is human nature to be social and be part of a community or group; if a person is isolated it can cause severe problems, social disorders, and even mental problems.
So we try to achieve acceptance by sometimes altering our appearance, personality, and attitude about school and life. Sometimes, however, people try to fit in with groups that they would be better off without.
Hazing in college fraternities has been a tradition for quite a while. Hazing makes the newest members of the fraternities do crazy and dangerous activities to “prove their worthiness” so they can be initiated into the frat houses. “The Chronicle” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported the horror of hazing at a local collage. The letter identified the problem behaviors as “strapping,” which it described as hitting members across the rear for discipline and other purposes and “showering,” in which members were wrestled, stripped to their shorts, then held by the heels over a balcony as others poured water over them.”
After people read these repulsive accounts on how far young people will actually go in order to be accepted, why is it still happening?
Sometimes fitting into the “popular” crowd can be a double -edged sword. Acceptance sometimes means sacrificing other parts of your life that are important to you, and after you start hanging out with a specific group you may never get those joys of your life back. Your high school and college years should be a time of enjoyable memories and fun, but when you are obsessed with how you look and how you act in front of the “important people,” the fun is taken away and the memories of high school are stolen by the kids who want to change who you really are.
Friends are people who accept you who for who you are, not people who want to change you to fit their lifestyle. Everyone has somewhere they belong in high school, and you should decide for yourself where you feel comfortable. Don’t let someone else put words into your mouth.
If your idea of fun includes being hung upside down on a balcony then we might have a problem. But I think you are smart enough to find people that will accept you for you, without causing brain damage by requiring you to do dangerous activities. Teenagers in high school are old enough to think for themselves and should be mature enough. They should start to realize what’s best for them. Fitting in is not always the most important thing even though it might seem like it at the time.
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Haley Butler
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